Medical articles today

An article published Online First and in an upcoming edition of The Lancet reports that new research based on a meta-analysis of thirteen statin trials has shown that use of statins increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 9 percent. Still, the absolute risk is low, especially when compared with the beneficial effect that statins have on reducing coronary events. The article is the work of Professor Naveed Satar and Dr David Preiss, Glasgow Cardiovascular Research Centre, University of Glasgow, UK, and colleagues. Trials of statin therapy on the risk of development of diabetes in patients given statins have had inconsistent findings.

Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center and Hasbro Children's Hospital researchers have received more than $2.5 million in direct costs from The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) to study the impact of asthma on the sleep quality and academic performance of young children. The five-year grant will allow pediatric researchers, led by Daphne Koinis-Mitchell, PhD, to evaluate the connection between asthma and allergic rhinitis symptoms (such as sneezing, congestion or a runny nose), sleep quality, and school functioning in urban, elementary school children between the ages of 7 and 9.

ADHD, or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, is among the costliest of behavioral disorders. Its combination of inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity leads to accidental injuries, school failure, substance abuse, antisocial behavior and more. Yet despite nearly a century of study, the disorder's roots remain mysterious. Much of modern ADHD research has focused on heritability of the condition, and indeed evidence suggests that genes may account for as much as 70 percent of hyperactivity and inattention in children. But that leaves 30 percent unexplained, so recently the focus has shifted to the environment. What is it that triggers an underlying susceptibility and changes it into a full-blown disorder?

Hey guys, remember the muscle shirts we wore in our teens and 20s? After the age of 40 that meager part of our wardrobes usually is obsolete. Yes, at the big 4-0 we begin to lose muscle, and by age 80 up to a third of it may be gone. It's an inevitable process of aging called sarcopenia. Why does sarcopenia happen and can it be stopped? A study conducted in mice with accelerated muscle loss at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio provides this insight: Less protection from antioxidants and more damage from oxidative stress results in impairment to cells' energy centers, which slowly leads to death of muscle cells. A team directed by Holly Van Remmen, Ph.

As the U.S. population ages, manufacturers of consumer goods are realizing that many customers may not be as nimble-fingered or sharp-sighted as they once were. To help product designers and engineers address those changing requirements, researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) have been developing evaluation methods and design techniques to identify and address the needs of all consumers, including those with functional limitations. GTRI's latest product is a pair of arthritis simulation gloves, which reproduce the reduction in functional capacity experienced by persons with arthritis. The gloves help those responsible for consumer products better understand how arthritis affects a person's ability to grasp, pinch, turn, lift and twist objects.

A recent analysis of two pivotal clinical trials in patients with acute low back pain (ALBP) who were treated with SOMA® (carisoprodol) 250 mg showed significantly improved functionality and reduced disability after three days of treatment, as measured by the Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire (RMDQ). This analysis is being presented this week at the 26th annual meeting of the American Academy of Pain Medicine in San Antonio, TX. In addition, a recent review of published literature indicates that SOMA 250 mg is the only skeletal muscle relaxant proven to significantly improve functionality in patients with acute low back pain as measured by the RMDQ.

"Progressive walking" combined with glucosamine sulphate supplementation has been shown to improve the symptoms of osteoarthritis. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open-access journal Arthritis Research and Therapy found that patients who walked at least two bouts of 1500 steps each on three days of the week reported significantly less arthritis pain, and significantly improved physical function. Dr Kristiann Heesch worked with a team of researchers from The University of Queensland, Australia, to carry out the trial in 36 osteoarthritis patients (aged 42 - 73 years). All patients received the dietary supplement for six weeks, after which they continued to take the supplement during a 12-week progressive walking program.

Naurex Inc., a clinical stage company developing innovative treatments for depression and other CNS disorders based on its novel glycine site functional partial agonist (GFPA) NMDA receptor modulators, today reported positive top-line results from its Phase I clinical trial of lead compound GLYX-13. GLYX-13 is a GFPA selective modulator of the NMDA receptor. It is initially being developed as a therapy for treatment-resistant depression in severely depressed patients. In the Phase I trial, adverse events were similar for subjects receiving GLYX-13 and placebo and were all rated as mild. There were no signs of the schizophrenia-like side effects associated with other NMDA receptor modulator drugs.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is currently appraising the use of liraglutide for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. Liraglutide works by stimulating the release of insulin; it also reduces the appetite and therefore food intake by slowing gastric emptying. In preliminary recommendations published today (15 February 2010), NICE has recommended liraglutide 1.2 mg daily as part of triple therapy regimens (in combination with metformin and sulfonylurea, or metformin and a thiazolidinedione) as an option for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, when control of blood glucose remains or becomes inadequate (HbA1c ‚ 7.

Dengue fever, also known as breakbone fever, is a mosquito-borne infection that causes a severe flu-like illness. There are four different viruses that can cause dengue fever, all of which spread by a certain type of mosquito. Dengue can vary from mild to severe; the more severe forms include dengue shock syndrome and dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF). Patients who develop the more serious forms of dengue fever usually need to be hospitalized. There are currently no vaccines for Dengue fever. The best way to prevent the disease is to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes altogether. Although there is no certain treatment for Dengue, it can be treated as long as it is caught before developing into dengue chock syndrome or dengue hemorrhagic fever.

Exposure to ecstasy or cocaine during adolescence increases the "reinforcing effects" that make people vulnerable to developing an addiction. This is the main conclusion of a research team from the University of Valencia (UV), which has shown for the first time how these changes persist into adulthood. "Although MDMA and cocaine are psychoactive substances frequently used by teenagers, very few studies have been done to analyse the short and long-term consequences of joint exposure to these drugs", Jos√ Mi√ arro, lead author of the study and coordinator of the Psychobiology of Drug Addiction group at the UV, tells SINC. The study, published in the journal Addiction Biology, shows for the first time that exposure to these drugs during adolescence leads to long-lasting changes that increase the reinforcing power of ecstasy or MDMA, and which last until adulthood.

The link between obesity and high-risk pregnancies caused by preeclampsia and diabetes will be the focus of a $2.4 million National Institutes of Health research grant received by Sean Blackwell, M.D., associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston. Sean Blackwell, M.D. Researchers hope the observational study will provide them with a better understanding of the cause, diagnosis and history of preeclampsia and diabetes in pregnant women and whether or not obese pregnant women and non-obese pregnant women are at the same risk of having complications during their pregnancy.

New research by the Oklahoma Tobacco Research Center (OTRC) shows that concentrations of secondhand tobacco smoke inhaled in smoking rooms of restaurants and bars are exceptionally high and hazardous to health. According to the study, which appears in the center's new report "Tobacco Smoke Pollution in Oklahoma Workplaces, " the average particulate level measured in restaurant smoking rooms was beyond the hazardous extreme based on levels established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The level found in bars was even worse. "These levels are exceptionally high and not healthy for the employees and patrons exposed to particles found in secondhand smoke, " said Heather Basara, M.

Walgreens (NYSE: WAG)(NASDAQ: WAG) will continue filling Medicaid prescriptions at its Washington state pharmacies through March 15. The company, which operates 121 pharmacies in Washington, announced on Jan. 13 it would stop filling Medicaid prescriptions in 64 of its stores because of continued reduction in reimbursement under the State of Washington Medicaid program. The decision to delay the withdrawal from the program comes as constructive talks continue between the state and the company. "We're encouraged by the state's willingness to continue working with us to find a solution that will allow all of our stores to continue serving our Medicaid patients, " said Kermit Crawford, Walgreens senior vice president of pharmacy.

Allergan, Inc. (NYSE:AGN) announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) approval of JUVEDERM(R) XC, a new formulation of the currently FDA-approved JUVEDERM(R) dermal filler and the latest advancement1 in hyaluronic acid (HA) dermal fillers. Allergan's new JUVEDERM(R) formulation contains the local anesthetic lidocaine to provide patients with enhanced comfort during treatment of moderate to severe facial wrinkles and folds, such as the nasolabial folds (or "parentheses") that appear around the nose and mouth. JUVEDERM(R) is the first and only hyaluronic acid dermal filler approved by the FDA to last up to one year from initial treatment2 and number-one selling hyaluronic acid dermal filler.

Victims of child sexual abuse are at increased risk of suicide and accidental fatal drug overdose later in life, according to the authors of a study published in the Medical Journal of Australia. Dr Margaret Cutajar, a psychologist from the Centre for Forensic Behavioural Science at Monash University, Melbourne, and her co-authors, Professors James Ogloff and Paul Mullen, investigated rates of fatal self-harm in 2759 people who were medically ascertained as being victims of child sexual abuse (CSA) between 1964 and 1995. They found significantly higher rates of suicide and accidental fatal drug overdose in the CSA cohort compared with age-limited national data for the general population, with relative risks of 18.

Middle aged and elderly people with high levels of vitamin D could reduce their chances of developing heart disease or diabetes by 43%, according to researchers at the University of Warwick. A team of researchers at Warwick Medical School carried out a systematic literature review of studies examining vitamin D and cardiometabolic disorders. Cardiometabolic disorders include cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes mellitus and metabolic syndrome. Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that is naturally present in some foods and is also produced when ultraviolet rays from sunlight strike the skin and trigger vitamin D synthesis. Fish such as salmon, tuna and mackerel are good sources of vitamin D, and it is also available as a dietary supplement.

Javelin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE Amex: JAV - News) announced that a reexamination conducted by a third party of pain score measurements from its Phase III study of Ereska™ (intranasal ketamine) showed that top line results for its primary endpoint were statistically significant. Previously, Javelin had reported that the top line results for its primary endpoint were not statistically significant. The previously disclosed top line results, based upon data captured by an external vendor, had inconsistencies whose presence was verified by a third party biostatistics company engaged by Javelin that thoroughly reexamined the trial's conduct and the initial primary analysis.

Congress must act immediately to restore access to rehabilitative services for Medicare beneficiaries as many senior citizens and people with disabilities are nearing arbitrary limits (also known as therapy caps) on services provided by physical therapists and other health care providers in outpatient health care settings, says the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA). The Medicare program began enforcement of the $1, 860 limit on outpatient rehabilitation services on January 1. "With many Medicare beneficiaries approaching the arbitrary $1, 860 cap, it's imperative that Congress act now to ensure coverage for necessary services, " said APTA President R.

Would you believe there exists an easy way to quit smoking which really is effective? Perhaps you have attempted to stop smoking many times, but always sooner or later given in to the cravings and finished up lighting up yet another cigarette? Me as well, I've already been through it so often. However I've now already been quit for seven years.... and you can do it as well.... Consider this single question - do you think that you genuinely wish to quit smoking... .? It may be a surprise to discover you most likely do not really want to stop smoking. Intellectually you realise that you ought to give up smoking for your own wellbeing and lots of other reasons.

On Monday, the Prime Minister gave a speech in which he called for more people to be treated in their own homes by the NHS in future. As a partner to the NHS, in providing healthcare in their own homes to 14, 000 patients, many with complex conditions, Bupa the leading international healthcare company, strongly supports his comments. Steve Flanagan, managing director of Bupa Home Healthcare said: "We agree with the Prime Minister's views that it is better for patients to be treated in their own homes. "Our experience of caring for 14, 500 NHS patients in their own homes shows it can be more cost-effective, helps avoid hospital-acquired infections, and produces higher levels of patient satisfaction.

A study in the Feb. 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine shows that sleepiness at the wheel and poor sleep quality significantly increase the risk of motor vehicle accidents in adolescents. Results indicate that adolescent drivers were twice as likely to have had a crash if they experienced sleepiness while driving (adjusted odds ratio = 2.1) or reported having bad sleep (OR = 1.9). Eighty of the 339 students had already crashed at least once, and 15 percent of them considered sleepiness to have been the main cause of the crash. Fifty-six percent of students who had at least one previous crash reported driving while sleepy, compared with 35 percent of subjects who had not been in a crash.

The antiabortion-rights group Family Policy Council of West Virginia issued a statement Wednesday calling on state lawmakers to support abstinence-only sex education and oppose legislation that would expand insurance coverage of contraception for teens, the Charleston Gazette reports. Earlier in the week, several reproductive-rights groups -- led by WV FREE -- held a press conference advocating for passage of a House bill (HB 4272) that would require health insurers to cover contraceptives for teens who are insured through their parents' plans. At the event, organizers said they hoped the legislation would receive support from antiabortion-rights groups because expanding access to contraception could lower the rate of unintended teen pregnancies and reduce the need for abortion.

The Renfrew Center, the country's leading authority on eating disorder treatment and research, recently announced the expansion of its services into Central America through a partnership with the Guatemala-based AKASA treatment center. The first center in Central America exclusively dedicated to the treatment of women with eating disorders, AKASA now operates as an independent affiliate of The Renfrew Center. For many years, The Renfrew Center has been training eating disorders professionals from around the world, but this partnership takes the organization's expertise in eating disorders treatment into another country for the first time.

ACCESS PHARMACEUTICALS, INC. (OTC Bulletin Board: ACCP) announced that it initiated an internal pre-licensing program to confirm the utility of its proprietary Cobalamin (vitamin B12) platform technology for targeted delivery of siRNA therapies. The program is considered important because, despite the widely publicized potential of RNA therapy, researchers up to now have been stymied in their efforts to design a pharmaceutical product that efficiently transports siRNA therapeutics into the cells they are designed to inhibit or kill. Access has multiple programs ongoing around use of its Cobalamin technology to facilitate oral absorption of pharmaceuticals, including previously announced collaborations with potential pharma and biotech partners.

NovaShunt announced the initiation of its pivotal multi- center clinical study named PIONEER, a Prospective, multi-center, open label, non-randomized study to Investigate the safety and performance of the Automated Fluid Shunt in patients with ascites and diuretic Resistance. The study is designed to evaluate the safety and performance of the Automated Fluid Shunt (AFS) System in replacing the need for paracentesis, the standard therapy for patients with refractory ascites. Secondary parameters in the study are concomitant reduction in the need for medication, health care costs (hospitals stays, treatment) and patients' quality of life.

Workers who lose their jobs after February 28 are likely to find that the cost of continued health coverage is unaffordable because they will not qualify for help under a special federal assistance program, which pays 65 percent of health coverage premiums under COBRA for laid-off workers, unless Congress acts to extend the eligibility deadline. In response to that looming deadline, Families USA sent a letter today to Senators urging them to follow the lead of the House of Representatives and extend the subsidy. The Senate is scheduled to act on a jobs bill that could include an extension of the subsidy. The COBRA subsidy was adopted last year as part of the federal stimulus bill, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The phrase "perk up your ears" made more sense last year after scientists discovered how the quietest sounds are amplified in the cochlea before being transmitted to the brain. When a sound is barely audible, extremely sensitive inner-ear "hair cells" - which are neurons equipped with tiny, sensory hairs on their surface - pump up the sound by their very motion and mechanically amplify it. Richard Rabbitt of the University of Utah, a faculty member in the MBL's Biology of the Inner Ear course, reported last spring on the magnification powers of the hair cell's hairs. Now, Rabbitt and MBL senior scientist Stephen Highstein have evidence that hair cells perform similarly in another context - in the vestibular system, which sends information about balance and spatial orientation to the brain.

Women experiencing an early onset of menopause could develop dementia at a younger age. Research by Tonnie Coppus of Erasmus MC has indicated this. She studied women with Down Syndrome, who are known to have an early onset of menopause. The results of her research can be translated to apply to the general population. Her results are published in the Journal of Alzheimer Disease. Women with Down Syndrome have an earlier onset of menopause compared to women in the general population, 44 years of age and 52 years of age, respectively. Coppus' findings show a strong relationship between the age of menopause onset and the age at which dementia is diagnosed.

A pilot investigation performed by a group of Italian investigators and published in the current issue of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics indicates that supportive-expressive group therapy is helpful in patients with breast cancer. So far, no study has tested supportive-expressive group therapy (SEGT) in cancer patients with an established psychiatric diagnosis. The aim of this 6-month follow-up study was to evaluate breast cancer patients with an ICD-10 diagnosis of affective syndromes participating in SEGT and a group of breast cancer patients with no ICD-10 diagnosis. A total of 214 patients were examined in the screening phase (T0) using the ICD-10, the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), the Mini-Mental Adjustment-to-Cancer Scale (Mini-MAC), the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, the Openness Scale and the Cancer Worries Inventory (CWI).

Diners who are skeptical of the food safety practices in ethnic restaurants have new research to back up some of their assumptions. In a study of independently owned restaurants in 14 Kansas counties, Kansas State University researchers found a significantly higher number of food safety violations in ethnic restaurants than in nonethnic restaurants. The next step for their research is to understand the reasons for these differences and to work alongside restaurant operators to remedy the problems. Leading the study were Junehee Kwon, associate professor, and Kevin Roberts, assistant professor, both of the department of hospitality management and dietetics.

Between 1997 and 2006, 38% of out-of-clinic suicides by mental health patients were carried out by people absent without leave from the hospital. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Psychiatry suggest that measures to improve the ward environment or prevent patients from leaving psychiatric wards without staff agreement could avoid up to 50 suicide deaths every year. Isabelle Hunt, from the University of Manchester, UK, worked with a team of researchers to investigate suicides in England and Wales over a ten-year period. There were 1, 851 cases of suicide by current psychiatric in-patients, and 70% occurred off the ward. Four hundred and sixty-nine of these patients died after going absent without leave.

As the world turns its sporting gaze towards Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics, The Physiological Society journal Experimental Physiology marks the occasion with a special issue exploring the biological and environmental challenges elite winter athletes must overcome to win gold. "When most people think about these games we conjure up glorious images of snow and high mountains", said co-editor Mike White from the University of Birmingham, "but when Physiologists think of cold and altitude most immediately think of environmental challenges including hypothermia and hypoxia." To explore these challenges the editors avoided the standard, resisted the stereotypical and rejected dated physiological methods to create an innovative and integrative new approach to study and debate the limitations to performance in elite winter sport.

Biologists at UC San Diego have identified the specific region in vertebrates where adult blood stem cells arise during embryonic development. Their discovery, which appears in a paper in this week's early online edition of the journal Nature, is a critical first step for the development of safer and more effective stem cell therapies for patients with leukemia, multiple myeloma, anemia and a host of other diseases of the blood or bone marrow. The researchers say their time-lapse imaging of the process, by which primitive embryonic tissues first produce the parent stem cells that produce all adult blood cells over the life of an individual, should help guide future efforts to repair and replace this cell population for therapeutic purposes.

One-third of people over the age of 65 wait longer than necessary for lifesaving, new kidneys because their doctors fail to put them in a queue for organs unsuitable to transplant in younger patients but well-suited to seniors, research from Johns Hopkins suggests. Results of a study reported online in the American Journal of Transplantation show that older patients could be receiving kidneys from older donors (called extended-criteria donors, or ECDs), but instead are unnecessarily waiting longer for kidneys from younger donors. "Every adult over 65 should be listed by their physicians for ECDs because the sooner they can get a kidney, the better the chance for survival, " says transplant surgeon Dorry L.

Retired Gen. Russel Honor√, who served as commander of Joint Task Force Katrina, will headline an impressive lineup of keynote speakers and panelists set to appear as part of the 2010 National Evacuation Conference. The conference will be held Feb. 3-5at the JW Marriott in New Orleans, La., and is being organized by the Stephenson Disaster Management Institute, or SDMI, and the Gulf Coast Research Center for Evacuation and Transportation Resiliency, which is housed at both LSU and the University of New Orleans. "The recent earthquake in Haiti reminds us all again of the critical nature of this work, " said SDMI Interim Executive Director Thomas Anderson.